Hello, my lovely, wonderful readers! Well, I guess it makes more sense to say welcome back to most of you...
But anyway...Here it is!
*cue horrified screaming*
A sequel!
I've been stressing and stressing and stressing over this FOREVER. You probably know how I am with my writing breakdowns and all by now...
BUT.
I hope(?) that i've finally pieced together something decent for you all. Starting with a short snippet of a prologue in which we travel back in time by flashback about 20-ish years? I'm thinking this story will be fairly concise, but the updates will come a LOT slower than they did with the first one...Still, I hope you enjoy! And as always, if there's a problem, let me know! I'm sorry if this is confusing or just bad or sldjlbfsjd and I know I don't usually write this type of implausible crap, but since this is based off a Dreamwork's movie hopefully you can forgive me this once?...I don't even know, but...
Enjoy, enjoy, enjoy everybody! And remember, I love you all!
No, really. I do.
Prologue
It's something like a heartbeat.
Tense. Slow. Heavy- each living pulse joined to the next as it builds and grows, reaching, rising, until it's a constant drumming leading up to the inevitable moment where it will hail in something remarkably new; a brilliant sunrise, a deep gasping breath, an awe-inspiring beauty...
But for now, it's still just the beginning.
A dull rhythm- two, actually, in the dead of night on opposite ends of a far-reaching sea, two families as different as the dark of night and the burning hot white of the stars that hang over the great big, silent world.
Tha-thump...tha-thump...tha-thump...
Hearts drum all around.
And it's a very special night, you see.
Terrifying and dreadful, yes. But oh, it's wonderful too.
And the first of it starts from a quaint little place tucked ever-so-safely between the green, green hills of an island far away.
An island called Berk.
Here, there's a fire burning in the corner of their cottage and their hands are clasped tightly as she strains and pushes, face damp with the effort of baring new life.
Women, her friends, are bustling around everywhere in the cramped space of the wooden little hut, but he remains, always, at her side. On bended knee, in fact, keeping watch even when Gothi's tried to shoo him out, and he's murmuring what words of love he can, even although the insides of his broad, sturdy chest feel as if they will burst with a thousand different feelings all wonderful and terrible at once.
And oh, he wishes.
He wishes he could shout it out to the entire island! But for now, it remains a panicked, magical mantra, recited to anyone who can bear to hear it for only about the millionth time in the span of 9 months.
"A father...I'm going to be a father."
Tears leak out from the crinkled corners of his kind eyes and spill out onto his full, dark beard.
And yet, he laughs.
When the others see this, so do they.
So does she.
And then, cloaked in a a hand-sewn quilt of his own creation, patched a hideously bright orange and a crimson red and an emerald green, amongst other colors, they smile and they cry, and they wait to endure the coming seconds together.
Tha-thump...Tha-thump...Tha-thump...
The second of it happens hundreds and hundreds of leagues away.
And to reach this sullen place, one would have to conquer quite a number of very unconquerable tasks.
One. Tame a turning, untamable sea, frothing with salt foam, and so cold the mere spray can turn the entire body icy numb.
Two. Pass forested islands settled atop rocky cliffs so high up only dragons, fearsome beasts that they are, could possibly reach above the white blanket of mist stretching as far as the eye can see.
Three. Cross an endless stretch of sponge dirt and moss and plants, some deadly poisonous, until that green slowly turns to the muddled ugly off-white of the beginnings of snow, until that ugly muddled off-white slowly becomes an infinite white, until that infinite white becomes the solid opaque blue and you find yourself surrounded by nothing but enormous, gigantic, titanic glaciers instead.
And for what?
To reach the place still just beyond those glaciers.
The farthest corner of the known Viking world where even the waters are black and the only sight for miles around is the wreckage of countless more unfortunate ships rising up out of the blackness, like the pointed teeth of a nameless monster.
And yet, this is exactly the place that the second he and the second she know that they have to be.
And here, of course, things are quite a bit different than they are in Berk.
Here, it's all very hush-hush. A matter of danger, of secrecy, and there's a cold sense of dread and danger lurking around every corner, even despite how far away they've sailed, and the only sound on the wind is the creaking of the ship as he paces anxiously outside the captain's cabin with all of his men, only able to listen as she screams and cries from within, a bought goodwife from the last village the only one to offer any comfort.
He's never been the particularly religious sort.
In his line of work, that type of nonsense simply had no place and he has no memory of his life before he'd started working in the service of a veritable tyrant.
Even so, he prays to the gods now. For perhaps the very first time in his life.
He pleads with every ounce of his being that things will turn out right, and despite everything in him that tells him this is wrong, he knows he doesn't regret a single one of the unforgivable sins that have led him here.
Not yet.
"I can't..." he hears her cry from within.
He rests his hand against the door, aching to see her.
And across the sea, "I love you..."
He clutches his wife's hand tightly to his chest.
"Almost there..." he mutters.
"It's nearly over...!"
"One last push!"
"You can do it!"
"Now!"
And then-
The entire world takes a great big sigh of relief all together.
...
The drums, they cease.
The pain is gone.
And instead, there's just a long moment of blissed silence suspended in the air before the midwives take over and the two newborns are made, at the very same moment, to open their mouths and breathe that all-important first breath...
Only, after that, there is a new kind of trouble altogether, of course.
"Oh, gods...She certainly can cry, can't she?" Mrs. Ack says with a frown.
"At least we know she's healthy." Valka laughs.
As the other women tsk and fawn over the baby, she gasps, lies back, feeling spent all at once, but when she sees her husband carefully lift the squirming little being in his arms and smile, everything seems right as rain again.
He steps closer. There are fresh tears hanging in his beard now and she manages a weak laugh, even in her state as the other women politely bow out to give them a moment of privacy.
"Look at her...Our daughter." he murmurs proudly, once it's just the two of them.
His deep voice rumbles affectionately and, with more care than he's handled anything in his life before, he takes the child to her.
She's pressing her lips gently to the little thing's forehead when he reaches into a leather pouch at his waist and sprinkles a light rain of pink down upon her.
The baby laughs, a ridiculously infectious burble, and clutches at the falling petals, but the mother only tsks weakly.
"Don't drown the poor thing in them already."
The husband chuckles, but brushes a pink petal away from the baby's tiny little dimpled cheek.
"Beautiful." he simply murmurs. Then, "Beautiful!" he booms joyously, feeling it all at once.
"Hm...She's actually rather ugly, I think..." she muses.
But he only laughs because her words may be harsh, but her eyes are softer than he's ever seen them and he knows by now, that when big moments come, she falls into her old habit of speaking in opposites.
"Know what you want to call her yet?" he asks, pressing his lips to her temple.
At that she nods, her lips quirking up to form a strong smile.
"I do. A good name for a good daughter..." she murmurs.
"A son...My son..."
His voice is thick and low. Still controlled as ever, but just this once, there's a touch of softness to it as he stares down at the tiny, restless little thing in his arms. He has no hope of understanding how to handle this thing...this child, but he can't quite bear to let it go, either, and it's got just his same strong brow and head of dark hair, but with beautiful eyes, thank Odin.
And she- she looks up at him from where she is, so thin and frail, with those very same beautiful eyes and smiles.
"He's beautiful isn't he? Looks just like you already..." she murmurs, in her careful, delicate way.
He doesn't know quite what to say to that so he merely nods, but it's all fine and well to her. She didn't fall in love with him for his honeyed words after all.
"What shall we name him?" she asks again.
And at this, he finally cracks a smile, a very rare thing for him to do, as he sits on the edge of the bed and passes the child over.
"We'll name him after you." he answers.
"After me?" she echoes.
He nods.
"You can't be serious."
But then, she nearly laughs.
Of course he's serious. How could he ever be anything but?
For a moment, she considers arguing the horrible idea. She detests her name- thinks it sounds more like a man's than anything- but then again, maybe that makes it just the perfect choice.
She grasps his large, weathered hand in her dainty one, and when his blue eyes meet her amber ones, "My name it is, then..." she agrees, for the exact same reason he suggested it to begin with.
And that reason is this:
Because if ever their secret should get out, if ever he should lose either child or lover, he and she both hope that at least one half of his world will remain.
"Your name, it is..." he repeats.
And so, the two families speak the next part out loud together.
"Our little son."
"Our little daughter."
"...Our little-"
"Althea." - "Eret."
And then, after another few good hours of marveling; of fawning and crooning and praying and love, with one last kiss, the two newborns are laid down to dream away the rest of the night in their respective cribs: hers, carved with great care out of the sturdiest pine, his crafted hurriedly out of a washed-out grey piece of driftwood.
Their fathers tuck them in.
Whisper 'Goodnight', then return to their lovers' side to settle down after all that's passed and changed their lives.
But as they and, indeed, the rest of the world slowly drift off by comfort of night, all throughout the very first hours of their lives, baby Althea stays awake. And baby Eret does the same.
But curiously enough, the little ones don't cry...
No...
Instead, they look out at the moon, as bright and beautiful as the sprinkle of stars reflected in their wide eyes, until they both, by chance, catch notice of the very same distant star and they follow it as it trembles and quivers, and then finally,
it falls-
Right as it does, Althea turns her head and looks East.
And Eret turns his head and looks West.
When they do, they're startled at first.
They don't know why, but...there seems to be someone else sharing in what they'd each thought was their own special, magical night.
They aren't alone.
And, oh, when they're older, they forget that, of course.
For awhile.
But for now, Eret and Althea cautiously stretch out their opposite arms, tiny hands reaching and grasping for some mysterious something; for some mysterious someone.
On the opposite end of an unexplored world.
And as a brilliant streak of white shoots across the navy sky, baby Althea laughs.
And baby Eret listens.
Don't worry! Eret and Althea will be back in real-time next chapter!
Until then, I hope this was...somewhat tolerable...Ugh...